


Do As I'm Doing

by Wolfsbride



Series: Joe Flacco/Justin Tucker [3]
Category: National Football League RPF
Genre: Baltimore Ravens, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-16
Updated: 2015-02-16
Packaged: 2018-03-13 05:57:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3370373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wolfsbride/pseuds/Wolfsbride
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tucker starts a trend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Do As I'm Doing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CoyoteGrin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoyoteGrin/gifts).



> Warning: Contains needles and wool. I have no idea either. For CoyoteGrin, who probably wishes she didn't know me.

It was during practice when it happened. It was a beautiful morning. The sun was shining, but not over bearably so, making the practice drills, not exactly pleasant, but not a chore. 

Dumervil was doing runs down the sideline and he passed Tucker, stumbled, practically falling on his face, before doubling back to make sure he'd seen what he'd thought he saw. Tucker was sitting offside on the grass obviously waiting for John's signal to take the field. He was braced against one of the long benches, legs stretched out in front of him; focus definitely not on the practice happening on the field. Stopping in front of Tucker, Dumervil stared, and then cleared his throat. 

Tucker looked up. “Hey D.”

Dumervil shook his head. “Are you _knitting_?” Dumervil winced at the register his voice managed to hit. He was pretty sure he’d woken up someone’s dog with that noise.

“Crocheting, actually.” 

Dumervil blinked. Tucker sounded like that was a totally normal event, and maybe it was. Tucker _had_ been dating Joe for several months now. That was liable to make anyone strange.

He was about to say something when Joe jogged up and dropped down to sit on the bench next to Tucker’s shoulder. “Hey, pretty nice granny square you’ve got going there. Good job.”

When Tucker turned his head to beam at Joe, Dumervil decided he needed to go run some more before his brain exploded. He took off, heading back to center field, but he couldn’t shake the image of Tucker, tiny needle in his large hands, working away at a little square of wool. _Granny square_. That said it all didn’t it?

~*~*~*~*~*~

Dumervil didn’t know how long the whole wool thing had been going on, but ever since that practice he noticed it all the time. Whenever Tucker had to wait his turn, there he was, needle and little square in hand, string of wool trailing from his duffel bag as he diligently did his rows. Only it wasn’t so little anymore. It was about a foot square now, and Dumervil found himself wondering how often Tucker worked at it. He was afraid to ask. 

It seemed crazy but Tucker took the damn thing everywhere: practices, team meetings, even to games. As kicker, Tucker was only on the field at certain times during a game, and so when he wasn’t being utilized, he would be busily crocheting away. It was inevitable that, even without him mentioning it, the other guys clued in. 

Ngata was the first to approach Tucker. It was during practice and Tucker was in his usual position of sitting on the grass, tongue poking out from between his teeth. He looked up when Ngata sat on the bench he was leaning on, nudging his shoulder with his knee. 

Tucker turned towards him, hands lowered into his lap. “Hey Loti. Looking good out there, man.”

“Thanks, T. What are you doing?”

Grinning, Tucker held up the square. “It’s called a granny square. I’m trying to make a blanket.” Tucker’s nose scrunched. “Joe says I’m supposed to make a whole bunch of little squares and then... um... sew them together? Something. But I dunno. Don’t think I’m ready for that. So I figured I’d just keep going around and around until it got big enough.”

Ngata hmmed. “It’s a pretty colour. Reminds me of palm trees.”

“Yeah?” Tucker looked back at the square he was holding. “Yeah, I guess it does. I just liked the shade of green.”

“You been working on it long?”

“Couple months. It’s kinda relaxing, you know? It’s like being in the zone when I get a good rhythm going.”

Ngata’s brow rose at that. “I see.”

Suddenly, the whistle blew and Tucker stuffed the square and needle into the top of his duffel. John was waving him onto the field for his turn at practice. “Gotta go.” Tucker scrambled to his feet, and then darted off, leaving Ngata behind with his stuff.

Ngata watched Tucker run out onto the field, meeting up with John, waiting for his instructions. Then he reached into Tucker’s duffel and lifted out the granny square, turning it over in his hands, being careful not to jar the needle loose from the loop it was in. The wool was soft under his fingertips and the green _was_ pretty close to the colour of the palms that dotted his home island. After a few minutes, Ngata put it back into Tucker’s bag. He rubbed his fingers together, his gaze following Tucker around the field.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The locker room was where Juszczyk made his play. He hadn’t even intended to say or do anything. He and Tucker didn’t hang a lot, for all that they were close in age, especially now with the Joe thing, but he was curious, damn it. He’d seen glimpses; Tucker’s big hands nimbly working with needle and wool. So when, as he was leaving, he caught sight of a bit of green sticking out of Tucker’s duffel and neither Tucker nor Joe anywhere in sight, he decided to sneak a peek. 

Pulling it free carefully, Juszczyk gave a low whistle. It was a square alright, alright, just like Elvis had said. Only now it was about two feet wide. He found himself rubbing it with his fingers, the wool soft and fuzzy, not scratchy like he’d expected. He was studying the design made by the pattern, when behind him, someone cleared their throat. Turning, he was confronted by Tucker who, fortunately, didn’t look pissed off to find him pawing through his belongings.

“Uh. Hi Tucker. Sorry, man. I just… I’ve seen you working on it, just never close enough to get a good look.” He made to put it back, but Tucker waved him off.

“No worries, Yoozy.” 

Juszczyk was startled, not by the nickname; no one ever went by their real name for long on any team, but more by the fact that Tucker actually pronounced it with a Y instead of the J sound. He eyed Tucker warily when he came closer, but Tucker only took the square from him, and then sat on one of the benches in front of the equipment stalls and draped the square over his lap. 

“You can see it better like this.” Tucker smiled up at Juszczyk.

Seeing how comfortable Tucker was with it, Juszczyk sat next to him and then reached out to trace the ridges made by the rows. “It’s like a square within a square within a square.” He pulled his hand back when he realized he was basically touching Tucker’s knee.

Tucker laughed. “Yeah, well the way I’m doing it anyway. I looked at some stuff. You can make like different.. um… patterns? In the middle and you can change colour and stuff but that’s way too complicated for me! Took me forever to get my fingers around doing this. Switching out yarn is way out of my league.” 

“Hm.” Tucker was petting the wool and it made Juszczyk want to do the same. It really _was_ a nice texture. “Uh. Well, thanks for letting me look.” He figured he should leave before he tried to rub it against his cheek or something. 

“Hey, no problem. See ya around.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Tucker was sitting on a chair in the back row of the video room, while the rest of the team was further forward, attention on John and the video replays he was showing. His duffel was sitting in the chair beside him, half the granny square covering the top, the other half drooping into Tucker’s lap. A little over three feet, the square hung to Tucker’s ankles as he worked his way around, and he had to bundle it up when he needed to turn a corner. He was very much in the zone when a heavy body dropped into the chair on his other side.

“What the hell are you doing, man?”

“What does it look like I’m doing, Suggs?” Tucker didn’t look up, his rhythm steady as his hand twisted the needle to make the stitches. Suggs was notorious for being an asshole, but he wasn’t mean about it and Tucker waited patiently for the teasing he knew would come. 

“What are you? A little old lady? Gonna get yourself some cats next?” Suggs reached to grab some of the square that was trying to make a break for it from Tucker’s lap, only to have Tucker smack him.

“Back off. You don’t get to touch the work if you disrespect the worker.”

Suggs huffed. “So sorry, oh most high and noble Tucker. Might I put these humble fingers on your majestic work?”

Tucker snorted when he tried to hold back his giggle. “That sounds pretty lewd.” He shifted so that the square was now half in his lap and half on Suggs. “Go for it.”

“Who’s lewd now?” 

Tucker elbowed Suggs in response, and then continue working while Suggs slid his part of the square from one hand to the other. “Can you even see what you’re doing?” The lights were off in deference to the videos being played.

“Don’t need to see. Been doing it long enough I could probably do it in my sleep.” Then Tucker demonstrated by crocheting a couple of rows while looking at the large screen TV instead of his hands. 

“Slick.” Suggs was quiet a moment. “You know, my grandma used to make stuff like this. Well, not like _this_ , since one giant square is kinda lame, dude.”

“Yeah, well I’m not your grandma.”

“Thank God for that.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Dumervil entered the locker room, stared, blinked, stared some more, and then turned and left. He tracked John down in the equipment storage room and noted that his coach didn’t _look_ like the world had gone mad. “Uh. Coach? Why the hell is everyone _knitting_?

“Crocheting.” John mumbled from around the pencil he had between his teeth. He wasn’t really even paying attention, reaching up with one hand to grab at a large netted bag of footballs, clipboard clutched in his other hand.

Dumervil threw up his hands. “Knitting. Crocheting. It’s all the same thing.”

John dragged the bag down and turned to look at him. “For God’s sake, please don’t’ let Joe or Tucker hear you say that. Not unless you want a lecture from Joe and Olympic style pouting from Tucker.”

“This is ridiculous! We’re a football team, not a knitting circle!”

John opened his mouth.

“Alright! Alright! Crocheting circle. You know what I mean.”

John shrugged. “I don’t see a problem with it. As long as it’s not hurting their game, I don’t care. I mean look at how much it’s helped Tucker.”

“Huh?”

John shoved the bag of footballs at Dumervil. “Come on.” 

The two of them left the storage room and John locked it behind them. As they walked back, John explained. “Tucker used burn up a lot of energy waiting for his chance to kick, sometimes too much, you know? Now he’s calm and settled, head where it needs to be. Kinda wish I’d thought of it myself, to tell you the truth.”

“Huh.” Dumervil had noticed that Tucker wasn’t quite so high strung as before, but he’d never thought to ascribe it to knitting. Crocheting. Whatever. Maybe he’d ask Tucker how it was done. No way was he talking to Joe about it. That’d involve a fifty page essay on the history of and a nine hour slide presentation.

~*~*~*~*~*~

It was game night and the Ravens were playing their rivals the Pittsburgh Steelers. Tucker’s duffel wasn’t on the sidelines as usual as by now the square was rather ungainly but Tucker still liked to carry it around in case he got a few spare minutes here and there. He’d left it in the locker room, intending to add a few more rows during half time. 

When half time was called, the Ravens were down 12-32, and Tucker was glad to be going off so he could sit with Joe and put in a little work. He hadn’t done badly but it always stressed him a bit when his team was against the wall. The crocheting helped with that. 

The moment he entered the locker room, he knew something was wrong. Joe, Dumervil, Haloti, Juszczyk and Suggs were huddled by the bench where he’d left his duffel and the rest of the team was standing nearby looking like someone had died. 

John approached him slowly. “Tucker.” His voice was grave.

Tucker pushed past him, but froze when Joe turned around. In his hands were pieces of fluff. Green fluff. He shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”

Swallowing, Tucker forced himself to move forward. He came and stood beside Joe, looking down at his open duffel, which now held the remnants of months of work. His eyes burned and raised his arm to swipe it over his face. “It’s okay. I can… I can start over. It’ll probably be even better, right? I mean. I’ve had lots of practice.”

Joe wrapped an arm around Tucker and pulled him close. Ducking his head, he pressed a kiss to Tucker’s temple. “Yeah. It’ll be awesome.”

“Those fuckers are going down.” Dumervil growled. The rest of the guys nodded their agreement. 

Tucker turned, careful not to dislodge Joe’s arm. “Huh? You think Steelers had something to do with it?”

Suggs swore. “Who else would do something so fucking mean? It’s them or we need to fumigate. Fucking big ass moths around here.”

Tucker nodded. “Yeah.” His mouth firmed. “Okay. Half time is almost done. We’re going to kick their asses.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

Final score - 33-32


End file.
